The Naval War of 1812. the Battle of New Orleans

Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...100 100 java 89 23 In hardly another action of the war do the accounts of the respective forces differ so widely; the official British letter makes their total of men at the beginning of the action 377, of whom Commo-' dore Bainbridge officially reports that he paroled 378! The British state their loss in killed and mortally wounded at 24; Commodore Bainbridge reports that the dead alone amounted to nearly 60! Usually I have taken each commander's account of his own force and' loss, and I should do so now if it were not that the British accounts differ among themselves, and whenever they relate to the Americans are flatly contradicted by the affidavits of the latter's officers. The British first handicap themselves by the statement that the surgeon of the Constitution was an Irishman and lately an assistant surgeon in the British navy ("Naval Chronicle," xxix, 452); which draws from Surgeon Amos A. Evans a solemn statement in the Boston "Gazette" that he was born in Maryland and was never in the British navy in his life. Then Surgeon Jones of the Java, in his officiia report, after giving his own killed and mortally wounded at 24, says that the Americans lost in all about 60, and that 4 of their amputations perished under his own eyes; whereupon Surgeon Evans makes the statement ("Niles' Register," vi, p. 35), backed up by affidavits of his brother officers, that in all he had but five amputations, of whom only one died, and that one a month after Surgeon Jones had left the ship. To meet the assertions of Lieutenant Chads that he began action with but 377 men, the C onstitution's officers produced the ava's muster-roll, dated Nov. 17th, or five days after she...show more